AUGUSTA, Maine — State Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic primary for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District on Thursday, beating back opposition from his own party to win an upset for the right to face former Gov. Paul LePage in the swing district.
Dunlap won 52.5% of votes to 47.5% for state Sen. Joe Baldacci in the final round of ranked-choice voting. He entered the count at just over 29%, trailing Baldacci in the first round by more than 2 percentage points. But he won after those who ranked former political operative Jordan Wood and political newcomer Paige Loud first broke heavily in his favor in later rounds.
Many of the state’s leading progressives were behind Dunlap. Pre-election polling showed him holding a dominant lead among early voters, which formed the foundation for enough second and third-choice support to work through the field under Maine’s ranked-choice voting system.
Dunlap, 61, of Old Town was the only candidate in the race who announced before U.S. Rep. Jared Golden’s November retirement, a choice driven by frustration with the congressman’s vote for a Republican voting bill. National Democrats warned Dunlap not to run and backed Baldacci after he made his campaign official.
“Together, we’re going to defeat Paul LePage one more time and make sure he’s never on the ballot again,” he said in a statement after the ranked-choice results were tallied in Augusta early Friday, nodding to the former governor’s 2022 loss to Gov. Janet Mills.
The longtime Maine lawmaker is known best for his time as secretary of state. He has a unique profile as the former head of the gun-rights Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine while endorsing Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2016 presidential primaries.
He ran in part on his role serving on a voter fraud commission assembled by President Donald Trump during his first term. Dunlap sued the federal government in 2017 for access to records in a move that eventually contributed to the panel being shut down. On the trail, he was ready to take that fight to Washington.
Dunlap ran a progressive campaign backed Medicare for All, a more sweeping position than Baldacci’s Medicare-at-55 proposal, and opposed the Trump administration’s Iran war. He was the target of more than $300,000 in outside spending from a Republican-linked super PAC that sought to elevate him against Baldacci.
National Republicans have noted his progressive campaign alongside his embrace of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner, who has captured the grassroots but has been dogged by controversies including offensive Reddit posts and a tattoo of a Nazi symbol unearthed in October to more recent allegations of toxic behavior in past relationships.
“The list goes on and on for why Platner is out of control and extreme,” Maine Republican Party spokesperson Kristina Parker said in a statement. “What kind of leader would that make Matt Dunlap?”